Time to treat domestic violence like other crimes

Cases of men abusing partners continue to be treated differently from other crimes

Fragile men. “Parasitic” because they draw their sense of wellbeing and self-worth from a relationship with their intimate partner.

That self-worth is like “the thinnest pane of glass,” says Ian Wheeliker, who worked with thousands of men convicted of domestic violence during his career. That glass shatters and turns to rage the moment love is questioned.

Edmonton saw another tragic case of what’s alleged to be domestic violence last week — two young girls dead, a father facing up to life in prison if convicted, a shattered mother picking up the pieces.

It hit in December — like it did when Edmonton resident Phu Lam shot his wife and seven of her family and friends, including two children, and when Spruce Grove dad Corry MacDougall shot his two boys, young hockey players, before turning the gun on himself.

These men behind Alberta’s high rates of domestic violence are manipulative. The woman is made to feel it’s her fault the man hurts, Wheeliker said. When his self-worth is tied to the woman, his rage can be suicidal.

It explains why these men can be so dogged, so focused on getting the woman back.

I shiver when I think of Mackenzie Petawaysin and Mary Lafleche Petawaysin, a threeyear-old and a baby, stabbed to death, their bodies hidden in a storage closet.

We can do better by them. We can understand what drives this type of crime and take steps to stop it. This is not hopeless.

Wheeliker is a self-described “burned out front-line worker” who found a desk job this year with the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters. He’s now director of programs, using those cases in his memory to seek for solutions.

ANKLE BRACELETS FOR NO-CONTACT ORDERS

Wheeliker has no connection to Ashton Brian Lafleche, 29, charged in connection with the two girls’ deaths, but he previously ran psychoeducational training to help thousands of convicted men try to change. He also was head of the Central Alberta Women’s Emergency Shelter when Alberta funded a pilot project in electronic monitoring.

Victims of domestic violence often complain court-ordered no-contact rules are toothless. Men stalk the women anyway. If she calls the police when she sees him parked outside, he’s gone before they arrive. She’s plagued with fear.

In 2012, Wheeliker helped shape a three-year pilot project that saw Red Deer RCMP put GPS ankle bracelets on 23 medium-risk and high-risk offenders on parole or serving sentences in the community. They created a virtual fence around the victim’s home, her children’s school and her place of work.

The bracelet alarm went off if the offender came too close, which meant a trip to the RCMP to switch it off. Officers could easily see where he had been.

In the final report, RCMP said it “enhanced victim safety significantly” and made court orders easier to enforce. Overtime costs dropped since RCMP officers no longer were required to testify when an offender broke the restraining order.

Women reported being able to sleep soundly, that offenders left them alone for the first time.

The pilot project came in under former premier Alison Redford. It hasn’t been revisited since it ended but jurisdictions such as Nova Scotia have found it a costeffective way to stop violence from escalating.

It’s worth making an effort to implement ankle-bracelet monitoring for domestic violence offenders with a high risk to reoffend province wide.

CAPACITY IN EDMONTON SHELTERS

A second issue is a lack of capacity in Edmonton’s women’s shelters — large houses with multiple bedrooms where women who break free can catch their breath.

The Edmonton area has six of these safe havens but they’re almost always full. They run with about 65 per cent government funding and are struggling to increase capacity.

At the same time, they’re dealing with increasing levels of violence. Last year, 53 per cent of the women who sat down to score their level of risk at shelters in Alberta said their partner tried to strangle them. That’s up from 47 per cent seven years before. Many others said they were threatened with a gun.

Even so, in Alberta 16,722 women and children were turned away. Staff scramble to find a room for the most high-risk cases but there just isn’t space to help everyone.

I’m baffled why we treat this crime differently from others, why we can’t act more quickly to protect the victims, why we can’t be there when they reach out for help. There is nothing to be ashamed of.

We have serial killers in our society, we have drug dealers, we have parasites who specialize in domestic violence. They all prey on the innocent.